


The Non-Fraternization Perplexity

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Related, Fluff, Holidays, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 05:57:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13140507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: There were many things he didn’t remember aboutthe incident. There were a few things he very much did.





	The Non-Fraternization Perplexity

**Author's Note:**

> Well, apparently there is something left in this turnip. I'm sure this is approximately the same to every other episode-related fic out there for 8x10-11, but, hey, I'm just happy that some words managed to flow out of me. Happy Christmas!

There were many things he didn’t remember about _the incident_. There were a few things he very much did. 

Danny remembered feeling euphoric and terrified at the same time, a strange amalgamation of sensations that only came in the most violent of near-death experiences. He had spent the better part of his life pondering when, where, how he was going to die, and all he could remember about being as close as he’d ever come was not being sure which emotion he felt the most strongly. In hindsight, he would say fear had to have been predominant, yet for some reason he would put money on the odd giddiness. In a terrible way, it made him less afraid of dying. Not much, not enough that he would want to go where angels fear to tread again anytime soon.

Speaking of angels and terror, his _de facto_ guardian angel (much to his chagrin)… Danny built back in the panic he himself had surely experienced because he could close his eyes and see the glassy, deep fear of _Steve’s_ eyes that reminded him of a time or two in far too recent history. That window into his partner’s actual state of mind was never one he wanted to see. Calm, collected, determined, that was Steve on the outside. Cocky and self-assured to the nth degree. The eyes, though, they gave it all away, and for the life of him, Danny could only recall seeing that level of concern being aimed at him, or his kids via him.

And Steve had been legitimately scared, so therefore Danny himself had to have been on the shitless side of things. Logic. Reasoning.

But Steve’s fear, now, that bit did something to make it feel like his heart was being squeezed. His lungs might have been the organ in peril, yet for some reason the residual twinges and shortness of breath were nothing compared to that pang. Steve with that look in his eyes cut Danny to the core, every single time. He could brush it off and deflect with trumped-up complaints or fussiness, but at the end of the day that look made him think things he’d never allow himself to actually act on.

Danny took a careful sip of his virgin eggnog, grimacing at the taste. He really only downed the boozy stuff because of the kick in the pants his great aunt Mabel’s recipe always gave him, not because he enjoyed the flavor or texture of the seasonal drink. Some things required bourbon. Copious amounts of bourbon. Maybe by New Year’s he’d be able to imbibe a bit of actual alcohol, ease the slightly hollow spot he always felt during the holidays even when he was at his happiest. He hung out in the corner, needing a break from the festivities for a few minutes. Just observing the partygoers and taking it easy as the long day caught up with him. He might not have had a role in the latest case other than the one left out of it to worry, but it was still exhausting.

He caught Junior running his fingers across the badge Steve had bestowed on him, caught Tani catching him at it too, the grin lighting up her whole face. He chewed on his lip, thinking. The room was too warm all of a sudden, his skin a little itchy. 

He remembered the flirty interchange between Junior and Tani in the iso ward, his and Steve’s silent reaction to it. Danny could only guess what Steve’s thoughts had been, but his were crystal: here we go again with a side of _look at the cute little puppies_. For years, the idea of non-fraternization had been ignored. No one batted an eyelash at Steve and Catherine working and sleeping together. Everyone encouraged Chin and Abby. Hell, even Kono and Adam were kind of tangential fraternization rule-breakers. Only Lori Weston had ever let that rule guide her, really, all those years ago when she’d removed herself. 

Oh, and him, of course, he held himself to that rule for some reason.

Danny closed his eyes, saw the hallucination he had of Charlie’s academy graduation. He and Steve, side by side as always, but not wholly together. Tani and Junior joined at the hip in seemingly the same roles he and Steve now held on Five-0. From what he could recall during his mental walkabouts, it always came back to him and Steve, and maybe he could blame the blood loss for that. He opened his eyes, saw Noelani peering at him cautiously from a few feet away. He gave her a tight smile and a bare shake of his head, before moving out of the room for the empty kitchen, then the lanai.

The air wasn’t cold by any means, something about Hawai’i he’d never quite reconcile no matter how long he lived here. To him, Christmas meant snow and frigid air and the scent of pine. Always would. But it was enough of a temperature change from inside, the ocean breeze helping clear his lungs and his head. Years now, he and Steve had done this thing. Between girlfriends. Sometimes not, both of them assholes enough to justify that hand jobs after a rough case didn’t count as cheating. Stress relief. During periods of semi-break ups, that was all. Nothing wrong with the thing. He shook his head. Except maybe there was.

He’d been fooling himself all this time, thinking that keeping it casual on the side was also keeping it strictly with no pesky emotions. His own brain managed to tell him that he didn’t consider his thing with Steve casual at all, not given the fact that every single scenario his hypoxic mind had come up with involved a long term commitment … to Steve. In some way or another, direct or indirect. Danny glanced back toward the house, noting even without a sightline on the guests inside that none of them included two supposedly key people in Steve’s life, and his own.

How many gatherings like this had there been, without even a thought about including Lynn or Melissa? How was it that after years together, Danny still couldn’t bring himself to say the L word to Melissa? He couldn’t just not say it, he couldn’t feel it. He knew why. Of course he did. He’d done what was right, there, though it had hurt and the timing had sucked tremendously. 

He rubbed at the right side of his chest gently, could feel the weight of Steve’s hands pressing against his wound. And the eyes again. Stupidly long eyelashes, stupidly vibrant with intense feelings. He was tired of holding himself to a standard that no one else did, tired of pretending some non-applicable rule was why he’d allowed he and Steve to stay in this safe zone of heated, infrequent but predictable hook ups. 

So the real question was, was he finally ready to broach the subject with Steve? Brave enough was the more appropriate term. He thought he knew Steve better than any other person in the world, yet with this one thing – he was petrified that he was the only one who was maybe, possibly, very much interested in seeing what more they could be. Time was way too fleeting. Danny had always known that, it had simply become more obvious with this latest lesson in mortality. He was tired of being confused about what they were, why he couldn’t move beyond excuses.

He smiled at the rumble of laughter coming from inside the house, but it was nice outside alone. He wasn’t ready to go back in, face the looks of concern no one was hiding well from him. Danny eased onto one of the deck chairs, crossed his legs at the ankle and stared up into the dark sky. With the faint, tinny sound of Christmas songs as a score, he closed his eyes and drifted. 

Startled when the deck chair shifted and he felt warm pressure against his hip, softer pressure draping across his legs and stomach. Danny opened his eyes to find Steve perched on the chair next to him. Automatically, he slid over to make room. 

“Hey,” he said, and it started clicking that he’d fallen asleep when his voice came out thick and mumbly. He rubbed at his left eye with the butt of his hand. “What’s up?”

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” Steve said. 

Danny felt something nudge him on this right side, looked over to see Eddie nosing under the blanket Steve had apparently brought out for him. He reached a hand to give a quick swipe at the dog’s head and ears.

“Eddie, go to bed.” 

Eddie whined once, but obediently trotted back inside the house. The now empty house, Danny realized. Whoops. He half shrugged at Steve, who was studying him like he might break apart just lying there. See, that. That gave him the same heart-squeezing effect as the fear-eyes. 

“Don’t give me that look.” Danny turned onto his left side, creating more room still. “I’m fine.”

“Uh huh.” Steve took the invitation, slotting himself next to Danny carefully. “That’s why you abandoned the party halfway through and I found you out here snoring.”

“Sue me, I still tire easily,” Danny grumbled. “It was a nice crowd. When’d it break up?”

“Junior and Tani were the last, they took off about ten minutes ago.” Steve sounded fond and a little perplexed. “They helped clean up for a while, until I couldn’t take the awkward sexual tension anymore and kicked them out.”

“Yeah.” Danny chewed on his lip. It seemed like a good launching pad to segue. “About that. You’re okay with that whole thing going down that road?”

“For all we know, they’re just pals,” Steve said after a beat. “Friends who flirt.”

“Hmm,” Danny said, then tugged at the blanket.

“Cold?” Steve wrapped an arm around Danny, somehow snugged him right into his embrace. “I gotcha.”

All this time, Danny thought, Steve might have been telling him something without saying the words. But he might also have put Danny in that friends who flirt (and fuck) category. He didn’t say anything for a long while, just relished the solid warmth of Steve next to him. Their thing, it didn’t involve a lot of cuddling, but he wasn’t going to mention it. This was nice, but his skin felt itchy again, prickly with a slight surge of adrenaline. He had to do this, risk so much.

“You know, getting shot…” he started. He felt Steve tense, but if anything the arm around him held on tighter. “As I lay there dying, I experienced some things.”

At the word dying, Steve shuddered. He didn’t utter a word, though. No attempt to talk Danny out of bringing any of this up, no prompting to explain what he meant. Trust Steve to be an impassive, unreadable wall.

“I saw us, at the restaurant a few years down the road. I saw Grace getting married, right here in your ridiculous beachfront property, only it felt like it was _ours_. I saw us side by side watching Charlie graduate. I saw us as grumpy old men – you grumpier than me, I’ll have you know – living here.”

Steve snorted at the grumpy comment, nonverbally refuting the claim. 

“I suppose none of it meant a thing. They were what ifs, not what will bes. Except that’s not like me. I don’t project happy endings. I don’t let myself go there, or at least I never have before. I think that was how close I was.”

“Danny,” Steve said, hoarse.

“And now, I keep getting stuck on one thing.”

Somewhere in there, Steve had started rubbing up and down his arm. Comfort or encouragement, probably both. 

“That thing we do sometimes, you know, the screwing each other’s brains out when convenient,” Danny said. “I’ve always held back, did you know that? I don’t know why. Shit knows, Five-0 has been a virtual hotbed for fraternization – you and Cath, Chin and Abby, now maybe, just maybe, Junior and Tani – but I think I get now that I used the idea of it being against the rules as a kind of a safety blanket.”

“Danny,” Steve said again, then swallowed audibly a few times. “There’s never been a ru…”

“I know. I know that. But you have Lynn, I had Melissa. It was easier. That’s my point. I’m tired of seeing other people get what they want and sick of not letting myself do the same for no actual reason.”

Rip the band aid off, he thought. 

“The bottom line is don’t want to be your on the side, anymore, Steve, so we either stop or we go head-on into it.”

Silence. Complete, utter silence, and that, that, _that_ was why he couldn’t even let himself imagine he deserved to have nice things. No regrets, though. Now he knew. Danny squirmed, tried to get out, but he couldn’t move. Steve had turned into a damn living straitjacket. 

“Had,” Steve said at last, tone thready. “You said you _had_ Melissa.”

“Yeah, well,” Danny said. “She wasn’t in my what ifs.”

Steve sat and twisted, loomed over him a bit. The expression on his face was a new one on Danny. He felt a thrill, low in his belly.

“But I was.”

“Yep.” Danny’s heart started to beat faster. “You sure were.”

“I don’t suppose you noticed that Lynn wasn’t here tonight,” Steve said, the barest of smiles starting to form. 

“I noticed she hardly ever is, actually.”

“We’re both fucking idiots, aren’t we?” Steve leaned closer, his attention flitting from Danny’s eyes to his lips, then back to his eyes. 

“I think maybe we were, but we’re working on fixing that?”

This time, when they did their thing, it was different, less desperate than it ever had been before, more… 

Just _more_.

H50H50H50

“Seriously. After what we’ve done together, you’re going to bitch about my germs on a cookie?” Steve groused.

“It’s different,” Danny insisted, though he could tell the pretense was already up. He could barely keep the grin off of his face. “That’s completely different.”

“You know, you are such a pain in my ass,” Steve said, after shoving a whole cookie in his mouth.

“Animal.”

Steve smiled, chocolate chip cookie chunks stuck in his teeth. Danny did the only reasonable thing he could: he pounced. He vaguely heard the plate hitting the coffee table as he did his level best to sample the partially masticated cookie right out of Steve’s mouth. Which was by far grosser than finger germs, but hey. Welcome to the new reality. Steve laughed, then moaned, a warm hand sliding under Danny’s T-shirt and pulling him close. His partner’s movements were deliberate and sure, but still were carefully reserved. He groaned and lifted himself off, ignoring the muscle twinges in his chest and shoulder. He’d been pretending all night that he was fine for Charlie’s sake, now he would do it for Steve.

“Come on,” Danny said, “Charlie’s got the ears of a bat and he’s been hyped for Santa all night.”

They shut off the lights as they made their way to the bedroom, hands exploring each other all the while. There was definitely a difference to this that Danny hadn’t expected, going from a thing to a Thing. Steve was as intense as ever, but there were layers now. Part of it might be that he was still in recovery mode, but he thought it was deeper than that. He just couldn’t give it a name. He felt a brief stab of envy for all the men and women that had come before him, who’d had Steve like this, a lingering air of regret for wasting so much time.

About two seconds after the door was shut and locked, Steve was naked and sprawled on the bed. The bedroom, like every other room in his house, was decorated with strings of lights. They cast an amazing array of colors across Steve’s skin, and Danny had to take a moment to enjoy the view as Steve stroked himself lazily. He couldn’t have pictured how free Steve was with all of this. Sex before had been almost perfunctory, and he was starting to think that had been _Steve’s_ form of denial all along. Keep it quick, about the physical release only. 

Danny stripped, then climbed on top of Steve, forcing his way between his legs. He batted Steve’s hand away, leaning down to lick a stripe up Steve before taking him in his mouth. He wasn’t the best at blowjobs, but he enjoyed the fuck out of the way it made Steve moan and buck up into him. He took his time, sucked gently, swirled his tongue just so, until he could tell when Steve was about to come. Then he pulled off. He had something else in mind.

“Damn it, don’t stop,” Steve gasped, reaching both hands out. 

He straddled Steve, bending forward to kiss him, wet and slow and messy. Steve’s hands on him remained gentle, frustratingly so, just skirting over the surface. Danny grunted and pulled away slightly, loving the spit-slick redness of Steve’s lips.

“I’m not going to break, Steve. I need you to know that. I need you to just fucking fuck me, okay?” Danny panted. He nipped at Steve’s jaw, his collarbone. He tweaked a nipple, trying to egg his partner on.

Steve flipped him onto his back, eyes glinting in the muted, festive light. It was a much better look than that that had haunted at the edges of Steve in the days since Danny was released from the hospital. There was no surprise in the way Steve kept things tender, how he did all the work as he prepared Danny, manipulated his limbs and positions. It felt an awful lot like he was being worshiped, as he let the sensations wash over him, as Steve finally, _finally_ entered him and then held himself still, watching Danny closely. 

Danny reached for Steve’s face, grunting a little as Steve shifted and the angle did interesting things. They kissed languidly, until Danny clenched slightly, tilted his hips and then Steve gasped into his mouth, started to rock in and out of him, gentle and insistent at once. It had been too long since Danny had had this, it was too good. And it was Steve. He reached down, took himself in hand and stroked in time to Steve’s thrusts until they became erratic, uncontrolled. Steve hit his prostate at just the right upstroke, and Danny’s orgasm hit him hard and fast. He arched, and choked back the shout of completion, still mindful of small but acute ears.

Steve swore and shoved against him a few more times. The stars cleared from Danny’s eyes in time to see it when Steve came silently, his expression horrible and beautiful. He was going to get to see this forever, he thought, exhaling wheezily when Steve collapsed on top of him, face burrowed against his neck.

“God, I love you,” Steve murmured. “You have no idea how much.”

Danny chuckled, toyed with Steve’s neck and wishing for there to be hair at the nape to run his fingers through. 

“I might I have some idea,” Danny said, wincing as Steve slid out of him.

Steve clumsily took care to clean them up, then gathered Danny close. Snuggling, it turned out, was Steve in his natural element. Danny wasn’t going to complain. Not about this, anyway. He yawned, his whole body in a state of relaxed pleasure. He was learning to really appreciate fraternization. 

“I love you too, you know,” Danny whispered.

As he started floating toward sleep, Danny felt Steve’s hand at his still healing wound, thumb gently brushing against his sensitive skin.


End file.
